as the heart counts time
by maxetal
Summary: kikyo, naraku and why the passing of an era by any other name is just as sweet.


Disclaimer: All the usual disclaimers apply. This has been sitting on my computer for a few years now, but I'm still pretty happy with most of it. The lack of caps is deliberate, not because I'm creative or innovative, but because I find it both easier to read and type my fics this way. Besides, I think Kikyo and Naraku are both too busy to pay attention to something like capitalization. Sorry if the formatting is all screwy. is not going out of its way to be user friendly, at least to this user. Please leave reviews, even flames, if you want. Reviews make my day.

i. coil

there you are, kikyo. it's been quite a while hasn't it? what - fifty years? a hundred? how wicked these times have become; a hundred years ago, it would have been impossible to find a priestess in a night club. i usually don't come to places like this, but for such an old acquaintance, i'm always willing to make an exception.

no, don't turn around. i'm enjoying the view from back here. red and black leather suit you, more than your priestess robes ever did. i like seeing you like this, legs bared up to the thigh, shoulders gleaming with sweat. i've never seen so much of your skin before. it makes me wonder what else i've been missing.

the last time i saw you, you were praying at a shrine, still wearing the same robes you had when onigumo first met you. how little you had changed, kikyo; slender and strong, seemingly straight and pure as one of your arrows in flight. i saw the looks the crowd in the courtyard sent your way, respectful almost to the point of veneration. kikyo, kikyo - what would they think if they saw you now?

slut.

whore.

woman.

how dare you be so beautiful.

even suffering, you're beautiful. oh yes, i know how you suffer. i was there. i was there when that half-breed left you, and i was there when he married that girl. five hundred years you waited, in return for less than nothing. i know how you suffer.

it was always you from the beginning. onigumo yearned for you, hungered for you, sold his soul for you. it is what drove him. i have learned that it is what drives me. for five hundred years, i tried to rid myself of him, but i found that i could not. now i find that i do not want to. what i want is you. i want you for myself, to laugh and beg and weep and scream and bleed for me, only for me. i want to fuck you and kill you and do every perversion i can think of in between. i want until i'm sick from wanting, until i'm sick of wanting.

and i want - you. just you. kikyo.

turn around. let me see you.

slut.

whore.

_woman._

let me see you. kikyo . . .

ii. impact

he could see that she was drunk. he hadn't thought she could get drunk. she hadn't either. but how wonderful it was to learn that she could, that she could lose herself in the warmth and lightheadedness and blurry, blunt-edged misery. she even welcomed the nausea, the giddiness. this was human. this was alive.

in the middle of swirling lights all the colors of flourescent and neon and soul, he was dark like a bullet-hole. she looked at him for the first time in a century, and found him beautiful; his eyes, his mouth, his shoulders, his hands; looked at what only she could see, the power that seared her second sight, the shadows sharp enough to cut, the memories from out of the hollow of her bones that crackled, twisted and warped in the bright burning dark but were never consumed. she licked her lips, tasting alcohol mixed with her lipstick, tasting the air and the fever in it, and . . . and _him_ - she shuddered; she could taste him already. she bit down on her lip until she drew blood, biting back laughter and biting hard. lust was human, too.

silence between them stretched taut like tightrope wire, while the music boomed in the background, drowning out all other sound. she could feel his eyes on her like a physical touch, lingering over her breasts, tracing the curve of her hip to her inner thigh. never taking her eyes off his, she deliberately uncrossed her legs, and felt a rush of heat at the lust in his gaze. she placed a shaking hand on his wrist.

"wanna fuck?"

he watched her red lips form around words he had given his soul to hear, and he could scarcely comprehend them. but when he took in her quickened breathing and rapid pulse, drank in the hot, heavy sweetness of lust in her scent, he was ready to take her right then and there, to throw her to the floor and fuck her until she screamed, until she was hoarse from screaming.

he reached for her, but she drew back.

"not here," he read the words on her lips.

she stood, but swayed slightly as her shaking knees threatened to give way. she was forced to shut her eyes as she waited for her world to right itself, and still she trembled. a sweet, terrible, hungry heat was burning at the pit of her belly, but her breast felt cold and empty. behind her, he shifted impatiently, silently telling her that he was rapidly losing his patience. spurred into action, she threaded her way through the gyrating crowd, her head light and feverish with the heat of his gaze always on her, always at her back.

they barely made it to the car.

there, in the small cramped space of the backseat, they tore and clawed at each other's clothes, hands and mouths hungry and seeking, desperate and despairing. she smelled of leather and alcohol, of mingled sweat and perfume and death, and tasted even sweeter. he hated her for it, even as he kissed her. and he also smelled of sweat and death, but fresh death, new-killed and not his own; and whatever else he was, enemy, memory, like, unlike, he was flesh and blood and alive, alive, alive. she hated him for it, even as she kissed him back.

it was over quickly, and they found it just enough until they reached her apartment. there it started all over again, and it was dirty and angry, even ugly, but hunger clawed at them, scoring their veins as all their blood turned traitor, turned acid and fire, only to leave them empty.

neither of them knew if it was what they had wanted, but both of them secretly mourned because they hadn't expected any better, mourned because they both had forgotten what it was to bleed and there was an ache where the memory should have been. yet, when it was over, when they lay in a sweaty tangle of sheets and limbs and long black hair, he found he couldn't leave her. and finally, in the dark, she clung to him and cried.

iii. contact

naraku . . . you are naraku, aren't you? even when i touch the scar on your back, i feel nothing of onigumo at all. onigumo is gone. he wouldn't have stayed.

no, don't pull away.

i know what kept you here and it isn't weakness or kindness or love. you stayed because the world outside is exactly the same as in here; an empty room with no one in it but you and me. you told me you knew how i've suffered; but i know how you've suffered too. all this time you've been alone, your humanity festers with loneliness like a splinter that's worked it's way under your skin. that's why you've stayed; because lying together like this, we can feel close. when we're like this, you feel as close to me as my own flesh, as my own soul. you're more real to me now than anything else.

do you know? i've been waiting for you to come fuck me. i've been waiting a hundred years for you. don't look at me like that. you know i'm not lying. after tonight, i don't think i'll ever be able to lie to you again without your knowing it.

do you understand what you've done to me? there are those who call orgasm "the little death". it made me laugh the first time i heard it; what did the living know about death? but it was. it was. and afterwards, it was like coming alive again, but coming back changed because you cannot come back from death otherwise. and still it's not enough. three times now, naraku, i've died at your hands; how many times more will you kill me before i stay dead?

it will never be enough.

never enough, because five hundred years ago, you did more than kill me; you led me to taint myself. that's what you wanted, wasn't it? to bring me low enough to shove into the dirt and use like a whore. now that you've had me, do you think me a whore? do you think wanting you makes me a whore?

i want you.

i want you.

i want to feel you, hold you down, breathe you in, lick you up, until you're closer to me than my own flesh, than my own soul. i want to feel you die with me, die with me slow enough to hurt. die with me, naraku . . .

then maybe . . . maybe . . .

iv. the zero hour

much later, he would wake to find her pressed against his back, his scar thick between them. she ran her fingers over it, slowly, carefully, as if it were still bleeding and raw and anything but the lightest touch could cause pain. he grit his teeth. he wanted to break her wrist, pull out her long manicured nails one by one and then - but then she kissed him right there, between his shoulder blades where the spider's fangs were and the scar ran deepest into his flesh, and he just wanted her to stop touching him, to get up and leave. he wanted to tell her to go, he should have told her, but it sounded childish in his head. go away. _go away._ like he was fucking five years old. and after more than five centuries chasing her, it wasn't just childish, it was senseless. he pulled away and told himself he'd kill her in the morning.

she didn't try to touch him again, but she didn't leave either.

"when i found you," she said, "i knew that i could keep you alive, but i also knew that you would be scarred for life. and i chose to keep you alive. what do you make of that?"

and there it was. he stiffled a wild urge to laugh. he knew this game, knew it far, far better than she. her question was real; she could not lie to him any longer, if ever she had.

"so now you begin to doubt yourself," he said, "four hundred years, and now you doubt."

"ah kikyo," he rolled her name on his tongue, savoring it, "let me tell you what i knew. i knew that your little sister told you everything; i saw it in the fear in her face. i saw it in the pity in yours. i knew why you continued to tend to me. it was pity; all i ever had from you then was pity. i wish you had kept me alive as punishment. i could have lived with that."

he made no attempt to hide his bitterness; let her see it, the prickling in his blood whispered, let her see. it is the only thing she will believe.

he heard her breath escape her in a sigh, as if something inside had broken to set it free.

"i knew there had to be a reason you found me when you did."

he looked at her with hooded eyes.

"is that so?" he ran his fingers over the smooth column of her throat, over the fine trails of blue veins just under the skin, down to the scar over her heart. he leaned down to trace it with his mouth, tasting his own power there, then he cupped her dove-white breast in his hand.

"weren't you the one who found me?"

she shivered and made a soft sound in her throat, but her eyes were full of steel as she glared at him. ah, now she was angry. he felt the demons in his flesh stir.

ah, they gasped, sighed, moaned, chuckled.

ah.

good.

you've made your point, she said, and i know what you want me to do. you want me to tell you to take your filthy hands off me. her lashes swept down to hide her eyes as she looked down at his hand on her breast, and then she put her hand softly on his, holding it to herself for a brief, endless moment.

"must we go back to that?"

"what makes you think we've left it behind?"

something like a smile kissed the corner of her lips, and he found he couldn't breathe, as if he'd been a green boy who had stumbled on a woman's nakedness for the first time, as if she had been the first woman he had ever touched, except he'd never been that boy and the first time hadn't been like this.

take your filthy hands off me, she said, but she didn't let him go. he knew then that he would never decide if she understood far too little or far too much.

v. eden wall

at midnight, they entered into the garden where the trees bore golden apples, and the paths forked like the tongues of serpents.

(sleep, talk, fuck; that is how they might have divided that night.)

(_shall we sleep? shall we talk? shall we fuck? we came here to fuck. to fuck, and that is all. that is why we are together. that is how we shall come apart. but when was the last time either of us has done what we ought to do?)_

_(when i was alive; that is why i am dead.) _

_(i never did.) _

_(never._)

by morning, they had crawled under every bush, they had trodden on every blade of grass, and their lips were stained bright.

(it would be impossible to speak of all that might have happened, of everything they might have done, for when one is not human, not demon, not alive, not dead, too burdened to be good, too bored to be evil, when one is scraping the bottom of existence, reality splinters when the unexpected happens.

they were not expecting each other. they were not expecting this.

so let us then define this night the way they define themselves; let us number the possibilities of what might not have been, of all it was possible that they did not do.)

(they did not sleep)

(_we shall not sleep. we know better than to sleep. one does not last five hundred years if one does not know better; knowing better means that one does not sleep with the enemy. one plays mind games with the enemy, using words as the weapons of choice, weaving and unraveling webs, letting barbs fly and deflecting them. and then, if that does not satisfy, as it usually does not, one simply fucks the enemy into the ground._)

(_we will not sleep; we will stare at the bare walls, at the white plaster ceiling, at each other, unwilling, unable to sleep._)

(_but i'm so tired_)

(_but i don't trust you_)

(_but i can't help myself_)

(_and you can't help me either_)

(_ . . . shut up and fuck me_)

(they did not talk)

(_talk? and what would we say to one another?_)

(_what good would talking do us now?_)

(_we will say nothing. we have neither the time nor the breath to spare. and anyway, there is nothing to be said._)

(they did not fuck)

_(but how is that possible? how can that be?) _

_(of course we did) _

_(of course)_

_(but after the a time. . .)_

_(no more fucking, i say to you) _

_(i kiss your throat, knowing i am acting like a slut, that i should not be doing this, and i'm waiting for you to laugh, waiting for you to call me a whore, but you say nothing, only ah, as if i have torn your heart out at the root, only that's mine, that's my heart, and i am searching, finding your pulse, and your smell and your taste, and then all of them are inside me, on my tongue and in my chest and between my legs) _

_(no more fucking, i agree, no more)_

_(and then we are up against the wall, up against each other, and then on the floor, first you and then me on top, and our fingers are locked tight, as if we want to crush each other's hands, as if we are holding each other down and away, as if we never, never want to let go) _

_(i kiss your throat, all smooth and white, and i can feel your breath catch and your body under me arch against mine and then your hair is all around me like the color of the night outside, and oh god where did you learn that, but don't stop, don't stop, and i think i must be sick, i think i have a fever, because i keep waiting for you to disappear but you don't and i can't stop shaking, but then i remember i can't be sick anymore, that i'm not human anymore, and i realize that you're the one who is trembling, only . . . no, we both are.) _

_(so . . .)_

_(what would you call this, then? i ask you when i can)_

_(i move closer to you. . .) _

_( . . .because the floor is cold and you are warm . . .)_

_( . . .because i had almost forgotten the feel of someone else's skin . . .) _

_( . . .because the light from the street lies across your hair in bars of gold . . .)_

_( . . . because my mouth is on your mouth, the one place i haven't kissed you until now, and your lips are on mine . . .) _

_(i don't know, i answer you when i can, i really don't)_

_(so . . .) _

_( . . .this is what tears taste like)_

at midnight, they had entered the garden whose fruits eternally ripened into the brilliance of gold, whose countless paths all twisted and wound their countless ways into forever; there they had come naked, as first man and first woman, except they were not, for everything human was in exile from that place. and so he was the snake; and so she was the angel with the bright, flaming sword.

maybe.

all of this did not happen; none of this did not happen.

but in the morning, they ran out of paths; they passed out of the garden and into the world.

and this is what happened.

vi. apocalypse now

he left her apartment just as soon as it was light. he didn't say where he was going, and she didn't ask, but she watched him from her window until she could no longer see him. she wandered into the bathroom and opened faucet. while waiting for the tub to fill, she looked at herself closely in the mirror, inspected every last inch of skin, and found a mark like a bruise where her neck met her shoulder. convulsively, she clutched at it, gripped it tightly to herself, and thought that this was what pain must have been like before she had forgotten.

she let her hand fall away so she could see it, standing out against her dead-white skin. she stared at it a long time, the sound of water filling the background, until it overflowed and lapped against the soles of her feet. that brought her back to herself, and she closed the faucet. in the sudden silence, she realized that she was afraid.

when he left her, he walked the streets in a daze, gazing at everything around him as if he were constantly startled to find that it was there when he had been expecting nothing at all.

he returned to his apartment to stare at the walls he had covered with paintings and sketches of nudes with their backs turned. he had begun his collection quite some time ago; he collected oils, pastels, prints, but he favored sketches done in pencil and charcoal, because they were black and white but hiding in the shading and rough lines. after the first few pieces, he recognized the taunting of the universe, but he was long past caring. with each new addition, his passion for them grew, all full-bodied and faceless, all dark-haired and pale-skinned, their nakedness as unassailable as the stone walls of a castle, bare and white, revealing nothing.

he piled them up in an empty lot and burned them.

later when he found her, she was in her bathtub, lying in the water, her smooth shoulders whiter than a shroud, her hair spread like dark wings, pretending she could drown. neither of them spoke, but he lifted her up and carried her back into the room, and there they strained against each other, groped and fumbled and clung to one another as they mouthed kisses like words against each other's skin, speaking in the language of the body, meaning seeping, sinking deep, until it felt like breathing.


End file.
